Tag: the living eyes

The Saints have come back and are marching in, but Australia’s The Living Eyes don’t wanna be in that number, they wanna do their own number. And that number isn’t the D4, erstwhile and ersatz garage punks. This lot sure as hell know their product and they totally own it. In fact they sell it hard. While Tame Impala and Pond do the hippy dippy do, with thousand yard stares and degrees in distortion, The Living Eyes combine the song writing sass of The Clean with the bare knuckle vigour of The Hard Ons. And if King Gizzard did garage psych, this lot do garage psycho. Less likely to hit the superfuzz pedal than do a super big piddle on your shoes.

As you might imagine from the title this is a party record, and one which Andrew WK the professional party idiot might approve. Hooky as hell, it recalls compatriot’s Eddy Current Surpression Ring, and last year’s excellent Meatbodies album, and wouldn’t be out of place in San Francisco or on Castle Face, In The Red or Goner Records. But in fact they’re on Agitated Records. This is their second album but their first was put out on bandleader Billy Gardner’s own Antifade records, a man staking his claim as a Melbourne Ty Segall by also playing in bands enticingly called Ausmuteants and Wet Blankets.

Stand-out and hair on neck stand up song ‘Guilty Pleasures’ starts off like Adam & The Ants’ ‘Antmusic’, goes all Dick Dale and ends up like The Damned before dying abruptly in a brick wall of feedback. I won’t pretend that this is high-brow, in fact it’s more like deep set monobrow but it’s one furrow that I don’t mind ploughing.